Real Legends

Published November 25, 2013


The drag ball community in New York has been active since the 1920s. Five decades before RuPaul was sashaying and shantaying in “Supermodel (You Better Work),” drag queens would put on parties and compete for prizes for the most ornate costumes and greatest resemblance to a biological woman. In the ’70s, the contemporary ballroom scene expanded to include categories for gay men not in drag (“butch queens”) and the formation of houses (the idea borrowed from borrowed from fashion’s maisons), tight-knit groups who would prepare and compete together, usually led by one veteran in the community. Among the most prominent houses were St. Laurent, Xtravaganza, Mizrahi, and Ninja, all of which would battle against each other in categories such as Butch Queen Realness, Face, Runway, Model’s Body, and Vogue Femme.

Whether for a minute on a runway or in an inexorable fantasy, individuals have captivated not merely by giving good “face,” but by crafting an outfit with enough ingenuity and working the catwalk with enough attitude to nab top prize. Brought into the mainstream collective consciousness with Jennie Livingston’s 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning and Madonna’s “Vogue” music video, the ball scene has endured, growing and evolving into a global happening.

Beginning December 1, in honor of World AIDS Day, the W New York will present “Legends,” a month-long photographic exhibition and charity initiative celebrating the New York ballroom scene. Curated by Gerard H. Gaskin, who has been documenting the ball scene for over two decades, the exhibition will feature archival works and never-before-seen images of the next generation of the ballroom community excerpted from Gaskin’s debut book Legendary. The W will also provide a special travel package, with proceeds going to the Hetrick-Martin Institute, an organization providing social care for at-risk LGBT youth across New York City.

Interview recently spoke with Hector Xtravaganza, founding member and now grandfather of the House of Xtravaganza, and Jack Mizrahi, emcee and “voice of the Ballroom scene,” who also consulted on the exhibition. We will debut a new photo from W’s exhibition each day for the next five days, so please check back for more from “Legends.”


HECTOR XTRAVAGANZA: Well the first time I went to a ball was with [drag legend] Dorian Corey—she’s like my gay auntie. She took me to the first one, and that was in I think 1980.  As far as The Xtravaganzas, we have been family before we even gave ourselves the name. You know, we gave ourselves the other name in ’82, but we were together before that, and to this very day we are still together. Honestly speaking, we’ve been fashionistas from the beginning. The first time was like going into the lion’s den. It was all about being creative: go home, find things in the house and make an outfit. Go to the ball and turn it out, collaborate with one another. We were always creative, because 90% of us were homeless from the beginning, so we had no choice but to be creative, we couldn’t afford anything. I learned once you hit the runway you have two options. You turn it out— you eat the runway, you own the runway—or you fail. So knowing there were only two options, we had to choose the right one, and the right one was the best one.

JACK MIZRAHI: I went to a club and I met Andre Mizrahi. I never heard of anything, this was like my second night in the gay club, period, so I was really sheltered. When he gave me the flyer I was like, “What is this?” and it was just a basic two-fold, black and white flyer that said “Legends Ball.” When the event came, which was maybe like three months down the road, it was on a Sunday afternoon at Tracks at 19th Street. It said the doors open at 3, so I get there at 3 and there is a sign on the door saying, “Ball won’t start till 5.” So I end up going to the movies and I walk back over there, but to make a long story short, the ball actually did not start ’till 12. But by this time people were filing in, and these were people I’ve never seen before, but it just looked like something great was about to happen, you just could feel it. People were coming in with garment bags, and there were these beautiful women, which I would later find out are the transsexual girls of the community. Once they were ready to start, a voice came over the loudspeaker and started to make the introductions. It was probably just one of the most eye-opening experiences. I stayed there from 3 o’clock in the afternoon; I didn’t get home till the next day at 6 a.m.




XTRAVAGANZA: The first category I walked in a ball was Model’s Body vs. Muscular. Back then, it was different than it is now. Now they want you ripped, you have to have the cuts and all, but model’s body back then you had to be slender and tender for your gender. You had to be nice and slim. I had to go out basically in a bathing suit. Once I walked, from there it escalated. Once I mastered that one, I went to my next one, my next one, and my next one. Then it just became who I was.


MIZRAHI: Back then if you became a legend, you really didn’t know it. You knew that you were on a winning streak, you felt that people knew who you were, you felt your competitors once you walked into a ballroom—you could see the shift in the face of your competitors at the house table. When you see that, that’s when you start getting the inclination. Now, people are actually protesting to be legend, “I have been walking 10 years, I’ve been walking 15 years.” So legendary for me, when you walk into it, you feel it, it is like you wear it automatically. You have arrived. It really is more of a feeling. There’s a lot of people out there that have been in scene for well over 20 years, 30 years, who are not legendary for a particular category. They are not legendary for being known to win Grand Prize Face, or Grand Prize Vogue. For us, it is definitely about the win and the value that you put into the category and into the scene.

XTRAVAGANZA: Hall of Famer is like the ultimate, but that takes time. I am finding a lot of kids just becoming legendary overnight, which I don’t understand, honestly speaking. But that’s the way the balls are today. As far as being a Hall of Famer, it’s whether you are contributing to the ballroom scene. Like myself personally, I am in tune with three generations, because there are three generations in the ballroom scene, I am in tune with all three. I am grandfather and godfather of other houses as well as Xtravaganza. I look at it in a whole different perspective than everybody else, because I am very real with everything; you don’t have to be in my house to be my grandchild. I look at it in a biological sense.



KELSEY: Obviously New York was a very different place than it was in the ’80s and the early ’90s, when you were first starting out. How have things in the scene changed? I imagine things are much bigger now, especially with the Internet.


MIZRAHI: It is grander now, but there are two major differences I can see. Number one is the fact that now, [being] gay is so much more acceptable. Back then, you looked at the scene as a place to fit in because the world wasn’t ready for you or you couldn’t come out to your family. Or because you came out to your family and you were pushed more into the scene because your family didn’t want nothing to do with you. But then, here, you have a plethora of people who just adore you and are behind you for you to win, win, win. And now with gay being much more popularized, that saying that everybody fits in, or everybody is respected, I think the pressure of where I couldn’t work back then, or I couldn’t be myself back then, is not the same anymore. Now, people are coming into the ballroom scene are getting their confidence faster because it wasn’t ever compromised. It is not suffocated as much as I think most of the people’s [confidence] back in the early ’80s and ’90s were. We are freer now.

KELSEY:  Jack, I know you are an emcee for balls, and Hector, you’ve been a judge. What makes a contestant stand out?



KELSEY: Do you have a favorite category?


KELSEY: Jack, how did you come on board for the W’s exhibition?




